Free Republic

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- Russian intelligence services warned Washington several times that Saddam Hussein's regime planned terrorist attacks against the United States, President Vladimir Putin has said. The warnings were provided after September 11, 2001 and before the start of the Iraqi war, Putin said Friday. The planned attacks were targeted both inside and outside the United States, said Putin, who made the remarks during a visit to Kazakhstan. "I can confirm that after the events of September 11, 2001, and up to the military operation in Iraq, Russian special services and Russian intelligence several times received ... information that...

Why did the Bush administration immediately suspect that Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks when there was no evidence of any connection, as Richard Clarke and other Bush critics maintain? Maybe it was because there was indeed evidence, very dramatic evidence, in fact - in the form of warnings in the state-run Iraqi press that such an attack was coming, along with praise for Osama bin Laden and his kamikaze hijackers in the days after the World Trade Center was destroyed. Less than two months before 9/11, the state-controlled Iraqi newspaper "Al-Nasiriya" carried a column headlined, "America, An Obsession Called...